An accord
by Oscillating between identities
Summary: "Ric, we've found her!" The doppelgänger said vibrating with excitement and Klaus wondered just what the chit was blathering on about. "We've found my twin sister!" Another doppelgänger . That changed things. That made his backup plans even more convenient.
1. Chapter 1

1

* * *

"Sorry I'm late." Klaus said, wondering if they would notice that someone else was riding Alaric's meat suit. He expected some agitation, his little trick with the Compelled girl dropping his name was supposed to add some fun and spice things up.

But they barely noticed him, too busy with their argument.

"I'm going, she might be in danger Stefan and I can't just let it be."

"We can't protect you if you don't even stay on our home turf, Klaus has his ears everywhere the minute you reach New York-"

"After months, we finally found her, I can't just let it be." Elena said and Klaus was annoyed. He felt distinctly out of the loop and didn't like it at all. "Stefan, there's every possibility in the world that I might not live to see the next week, consider it my final request."

"Am I the only one confused?" Klaus asked in Alaric's well-meaning, even toned voice and the quibbling couple turned to him.

"We found her." The doppelgänger said vibrating with excitement.

"Her who?"

"Eileen, Ric, we found my twin sister!" A twin? Katherine and Isobel forgot to mention that. But he'd been in the town for a while now and heard nothing about any runaway twin. What a pity, even the slightest increase in leverage was good."She's in New York, we found her and she's...she's a doppelgänger too!"

 _Two_ doppelgängers. That took backup plan to a whole different level. Elena Gilbert might have been protected by her loving Vampires but a doppelgänger who didn't even know what she was, what the supernatural was, completely defenceless… All those years of suffering and Klaus couldn't believe his luck.

What was the saying? Oh yes, when it rains, it pours. Katerina in his possession, his interfering brother held captive, gullible wolves and vampires ripe for the picking and two doppelgängers. The very stars must be aligned for this.

He could delay his plans for the party a little bit for this.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go find your sister."

And the look of relief and gratitude on the doppelgänger's face would fuel many a future laughing fit.

* * *

When he first laid eyes on Eileen Henri, Elena's twin and another Petrova doppelgänger, Stefan almost didn't recognise her. It was ridiculous given that she looked just like Elena and Katherine. More lean and her cheeks didn't hold quite the young look as Elena's did but essentially the same.

And yet, so very different.

She looked taller than Elena because of the ramrod straight way she stood, her chin high and proud where Elena tilted hers a bit down. She walked with a dancer's grace, even the way she put her feet down on the ground was so violently different from Elena.

And just as he was struck by the differences between the twins, he was struck by the similarities between Elena and Katherine. Under no circumstance could he imagine Katherine successfully imitating _this_ doppelgänger, it would be obvious even from a distance.

"That's interesting." Alaric said and Stefan looked at the older man. He had been acting a bit strangely, perhaps because Jenna and he were on the outs. While Kat-Elena paced the floor in the coffee shop they were in, waiting for her sister to finish talking to her friend so they could finally meet, Damon, Alaric and he were looking outside carefully observing the girl.

When her eyes met theirs through the glass Stefan was again struck by how different they seemed to those of Katherine and Elena, the slightest arch in the brow making her seem skeptical and distant. Like she was suspicious of them. And they hadn't even begun to introduce themselves, let alone explain about vampires and werewolves and doppelgangers yet.

"You must be Elena," she said politely, a slight smile on her face as she reached a hand out for Elena to shake. When Elena threw herself at her sister engulfing her in a hug instead, Stefan winced on behalf of the girl, feeling her discomfort in the awkward pats she gave Elena.

It was almost comical.

Almost.

"I can't believe it, this is amazing," Elena pulled back from the hug to look at Eileen carefully, "You look just like me!"

And again Stefan winced. His girlfriend was not making the best of impressions on her sister.

"Right. I'm Eileen Henri and you all are-?"

"Stefan, I'm Elena's boyfriend."

"Damon Salvatore, Stefan's older brother." Damon purred throwing an arm around him and Stefan was hard pressed not to throw it off.

"Alaric Saltzman, Elena's history teacher and her aunt's ex-boyfriend."

The awkward smile on Eileen's face turned even more remote. "Of course you are."

"We need to talk," Elena said seriously and her sister looked at her in confusion.

"Well yes, I assumed that's why we're meeting in a cafe." Eileen said it with complete honesty, like she couldn't imagine going to a cafe for any other reason

"No, I...not here. There's no privacy here."

"Right...I know a place."

They ended up in an empty dance studio and Stefan didn't miss the way Eileen deliberately looked up, as if startled, before entering the place. It was a move that ensured that when they all turned to see what had caught her attention their faces were caught on the CCTV cameras at the door.

Clever girl.

"So, what did you want to tell me?"

"Eileen," Elena said gravely. "Do you believe in vampires?"

"You're not trying to make me join some Dracula worshipping cult, right? Because if Gavin put you up to this-" Damon reacted quickly, showing her his vamped out face and she stopped mid-sentence, looking at his brother's face with surprised eyes. "Well, that's interesting. I think you'd better start at the beginning."

And Elena told the girl everything. Everything about vampires and werewolves, everything about Klaus and the curse and witches and Originals and doppelgängers, _everything_.

"So, a human doppelgänger has to be sacrificed to break the curse."

"Yes." Elena exhaled heavily. Stefan understood where his girlfriend was coming from, he too was very glad that Eileen hadn't run away screaming or calling them liars.

"And you and I, we're both doppelgängers, are we?"

"Yes, exactly."

"It doesn't need to be you, it could just as easily be me." By then even Elena had caught on to the thoughtful, calculating tone to her twin's voice. "And what if I was to volunteer to sacrifice myself in your place? Would that make things easier?"

A shocked silence followed her statement. None of them were expecting that.

"Eileen, you'd have to be sacrificed, as in _killed!"_

"Yes, I understood that. And in the words of Katniss, I volunteer."

* * *

1


	2. Chapter 2

2

* * *

Elena couldn't believe her ears. Why did this keep happening, why did the people around think it was okay if they kept dropping like like flies?! She'd only just found her sister and already…

This was _wrong!_

"You can't mean that," The whisper barely left her mouth when she got tossed a funny look from Eileen.

She was just _so_ different from anything she'd expected. She'd seen the Lane twins in school, how in sync they were, they even completed each other's sentences. Elena was pretty certain Eileen wasn't going to be completing anyone's sentences for them.

"What do you want in return?" Stefan asked and Elena whirled on him, angry.

"What do you mean-"

"This vampire blood healing of yours, would it work on _anything_?" Eileen said, her voice flat, as if she was trying not to get her hopes up.

"Pretty much." Damon answered. "You've got something specific in mind?"

"My sister's been in a coma for the last three months. Would your blood wake her?" Her tongue swiped under teeth and her mouth twisted. Her hands were in her lap, restlessly shifting, tugging at the folds of fabric that made up her skirt. She was nervous.

And it surprised Elena. But why? She didn't know anything about her, why would it seem such a shock that her twin was a nervy type?

"It depends upon her diagnosis, comas aren't the same as any other physical injury, our blood can't fix mental traumas, I'll need to look at her medical files." Damon said and everyone turned to look at him in disbelief. "I studied medicine in the eighties."

"Have you been keeping with it though?" Eileen asked, "The field is constantly changing, if your knowledge is outdated…"

"Fell off the wagon in the nineties but since wifi became more common it's been easy enough to keep up." Damon shrugged.

"I'm sorry, are we not going to talk about the fact that she wants to _sacrifice_ herself?!" Elena couldn't help but yell. How could they talk so easily about someone choosing to barter away their life like this, let alone the fact that this was her twin sister talking about taking her place in some stupid ritual?!

Eileen just let out a little bitter sounding laugh, "Come on, man, it sounds like it was going to come down to you dying vs. your whole town dying and then you dying anyway. You were going to 'sacrifice' yourself at some point anyway. This way, everyone wins."

"But _you_ don't!"

"Yes I do, I get my sister to wake up from her coma."

"That's assuming that her diagnosis allows for it." Damon said, "What if it doesn't?"

"If she doesn't wake up, I don't have much to live for anyway." She said carelessly, as if she wasn't talking about _dying_. "Not to mention this Klaus person will probably know who and what I am by now and come for me since I'm the easier target."

Elena felt dread climbing up her spine. They knew Klaus had his ears and eyes everywhere but surely he wouldn't know about this, he wouldn't know about Eileen. "How would he know? You don't think his witches might have used a locator spell?"

Eileen shot her a blank look. "Elena, you do realise you have your location turned on on Facebook, right? I knew the minute you reached New York and your profile isn't private either. _Everyone_ knows where you are."

Oh God, what had she done?!

* * *

Klaus stilled for a brief moment when Eileen said that he would probably know who and where she was. Had he given himself away somehow in Alaric Saltzman's body? But even if he had, a chit who'd never met him before wouldn't know it, would she? Especially when Alaric's 'friends' most certainly did not.

Her explanation blew him away for its sheer simplicity and logic. But then, perhaps _that_ was where she was going wrong. Logic had no place in the world they lived in.

Still, she was an interesting thing, this other doppelgänger. The one who willingly walked to her death, volunteering as she called it. It was obvious enough for anyone to see that she did not care one whit for the Gilbert doppelgänger, her twin seemed to get on her nerves.

It was strange though, how different the girl was. The Petrova doppelgängers, Tatia, Katerina and Elena were very much in love with being alive. Elena made all the noises to indicate that she didn't like Vampirism, as something not meant for her but she wasn't nearly as convincing as her sister. Nothing said 'I don't want to be a Vampire' like planning your own, very final death.

But her determination, that belied her a Petrova. Petrovas were always willing to pay incredibly high prices in moments of desperation.

"Do you guys have a place to stay?" She asked, and the non-Ripper Salvatore smirked and leaned in.

"You offering?"

"Yes, if I don't know where to meet you to show you the reports then we might as well set up camp in my house." The sheer blankness in the way she talked gave him pause. As if someone had compelled her to be so, but Klaus could tell well enough this was no compulsion. This was a very young girl on verge of a breakdown and trying to hide it.

"You're no fun." Damon pouted and Stefan apologised on his brother's behalf and politely asked for the address. Rebekah would have dropped this annoyingly soft version of her former lover in a second.

They retreated to a loft in Brooklyn. It was a larger home, clearly not meant to be lived in by a single person. Photographs hung on the wall, there wasn't dust but too many things seemed to be unused for too long a while, and there were too many cheerful things in the place that obviously did not belong to the grave faced girl in front of him. She herded the others, telling them where they could sleep, a guest room, a man's room that had been emptier for even longer than the living room in its disuse and her own room which she would share with her twin. Elena seemed overwhelmingly touched by the gesture, not recognising it for the practical move it was.

Because there was yet another room that she had adamantly steered them away from and Klaus was certain it was the room of the sister she was trying so desperately to save.

Klaus admired that. Family was important.

He only wondered if she realised what she would be putting her sister through when she died while the other woke up.

* * *

Eileen Henri let herself into her bathroom and stared at her reflection. On the other side of the door her twin was busy acclimating to the room. Probably running her fingers over things, looking at all the photographs, fiddling with Eileen's music box, preparing questions to ask.

And all Eileen could think was 'I wish Marlene were here.'

Her sister would know what to do, she'd know what to say. If Marlene was there she'd believe the whole Vampire thing easily while Eileen would be the one to remain skeptical and wonder if it was some high tech mask they used for tv shows or something.

Because if Vampires didn't mean a way to save her sister, then she had no reason to believe in them.

But maybe they could. And that 'maybe' was the only thing keeping her going. Oh sure, 'maybe' Marlene would walk up on her own anyway but did she really want to take the chance? Now, when the insurers were pressuring her to take Marlene off the life support so that a bed could be emptied, now, when her dad said he couldn't come home just yet because if there were going to be the kind of medical bills they expected, then leaving a job midway was only going to be more problematic. And she still had her showcase in a week and had practice every day.

She liked to think she could handle pressure. The nerves and anxiety of fighting for the lead roles was something she had dealt with, after all. The madness of trying to graduate early with extra credits, she could deal with it all.

But not _alone_.

She was drowning in it all. Sometimes she woke from nightmares and wondered if she was really breathing. It seemed impossible around the weight on her chest pushing her down. She looked in the mirror when she danced and wondered if her jumps were high enough. It felt like lead was wrapped around her ankles.

"Eileen, you okay in there?" Her twin asked, knocking on the door. The noise startled her out of her daze and she came back to herself, remembering that she had hostess responsibilities right now.

"Yes, I'll be out in a bit." Eileen said and splashed her face with some water. She stepped out to find her twin smiling warmly at her. "I'm just going to get started on dinner, do you have any food allergies or intolerances I should know about?"

Elena laughed and said no. Eileen took the chance and escaped, unable to stand it anymore. It was unnerving to have eyes on her when she wasn't on stage or in rehearsals. Painstakingly pulling herself together, she knocked on the door to her father's room where two vampires and one history teacher who moonlighted as a vampire hunter, were staying. She asked them the same question, handing over Marlene's medical files to the Vampire who'd said he was a doctor once.

"I'll help," The history teacher said.

"Oh, that's fine."

"I insist, love. You shouldn't have to do this on your own with actual adults in the house."

In the face of such polite persistence she couldn't help but agree. The teacher, Alaric Saltzman if she remembered correctly, followed her directions to chop the onions while she got the pans hot. As she prepped the rest she was also mesmerised by the rhythmic motions of the knife and how perfect a dice he cut them into.

"So," He started, not looking up from the onions and she cringed, knowing he'd want to talk about it all. "Offering yourself up as a sacrifice in return for your sister's continued health. It's rather brave of you to go to your death like that."

And Eileen laughed. She laughed and laughed until she was clutching her sides in pain, tears streaking down her face, hating herself for how the sound betrayed what she tried so hard to hide. The hysteria, the way she was slowly breaking down, all laid out bare for this stranger to see. But...but it was funny in its own sort of way.

Brave!

"There's nothing brave about it Mr Saltzman. Dying is _easy,_ " She wiped the tears of laughter off her face and found he was looking at her with a curious expression. "Dying is easy. Living is the hard part."

Whether it was the laughter that did it or something else, she found that she wasn't just looking at Mr Saltzman anymore but the Vampires and her twin as well. The smile on her face, a remnant of her laughter, dropped quickly as she noticed the file that the dark haired one was holding.

"Can you do. it? Would it work? Could you wake her up?" She couldn't help but ask, her voice coming out as a bare whisper. She pushed down the stirrings of hope welling up in her and prepared herself for the worst.

"We can." He said and for what felt like the first time in months, Eileen breathed easy.

* * *

2


	3. Chapter 3

3

* * *

The plan was simple. They would be accompanying Eileen to the hospital during visiting hours, Damon would feed the sister his blood, her sister would make her miraculous recovery and then Eileen would make her excuses, come with them to Mystic Falls and be a part of the sacrifice. Being that she was a willing lamb going to the slaughter, they would try to get 'Klaus' to pick people outside of their little friend circle for the other sacrifices and thus save themselves some heartache.

The Gilbert girl made her noises again but she was ignored, again. All that high morality had no place in her new world so why she clung to it so desperately Klaus didn't understand.

"Oh, you're up," Eileen said as he walked into the living room, bent over a bowl of cereal. It was early in the morning, the sun hadn't risen yet and he could not fathom why she was up as well. He wanted to simply get out of the house, go for a walk where he couldn't be heard and tell Maddox and Greta of the change in plans.

"Habit I'm afraid," he lied smoothly, "May I ask why you're up?"

Her mouth quirked in the faintest mockery of smiles. "Work, I have a shift at the deli till nine and rehearsals after that."

"Rehearsals?"

"My ballet workshop is putting up a performance at the end of this week and I have the lead role."

"You're still going to do it?" He had thought that they would leave as quickly as possible. The full moon would be rising soon and he didn't want to wait too long to break his curse.

"My life may be ending in some backwater hick town but I'll be damned if my professional life doesn't end on a high." Klaus laughed. Mostly he wanted to hear her say that again around the Salvatore boys and the Gilbert girl, that the town their families had founded was making this city girl twist and turn with its insignificance. "Besides, I'll need to get some time to get my affairs in order. It wouldn't be convincing if I just took off and left while my sister was still in remission and anything that goes against my character will get her investigating and I don't what that. I don't want her involved in this drama. Hey, do you think that I'll be particularly mutilated during the sacrifice?"

Even Klaus was taken aback by that question and it must have shown because she rolled her eyes at him. He answered, if only to lessen the feeling of being patronised by a child. How did 'Ric' stand going through it every day? "I'm guessing that Klaus will just feed off your blood until you die."

Her mouth twisted "Unsanitary. What do you think, fiery car crash? Would that get rid of the evidence nicely?"

"Maybe toss you off a building and say you fell," Klaus suggested and once again she rolled her eyes.

"Mr Saltzman please, I'm a ballerina, I don't just lose my balance and fall. You tell Marlene that and she'll know that I either jumped or was pushed." She took a final spoonful of cereal, lost in thought as she chewed on it, "Never mind I'll think of something."

She left but not before leaving a note on the fridge. Klaus left his own note before going off out to rework his plans, all the while thinking of the girl who was thinking of the best way to hide her upcoming supernatural death to keep her sister from getting involved with their kind.

What a remarkable young woman.

* * *

"Gavin, you're here too," Eileen couldn't help but say when she saw her sister's best friend there in the hallway outside Marlene's hospital room, where a doctor had stopped her to talk about Marlene. Her twin, Damon and Mr Saltzman had come with her for 'visiting hours' and were inside the room with Stefan sitting their jaunt out because the smell of human blood tempted him far too much. For the briefest of moments Eileen had wanted to ask what that was about but then she came to her senses and realised that she didn't really want to know.

Damon was the 'doctor' vampire and he was the one she wanted there. He was a lot more likely to know what to do and if they ran into any too curious nurses or doctors she wanted him to engage them in conversation, ask about Marlene's condition from one medical professional to another because compulsions in a hospital where CCTV cameras were there didn't seem like a good idea. Elena had tried to convince her that they had done it before back in Mystic Falls but Eileen had reminded her that the sheriff of that town was in the know about the supernatural and was likely to take any discrepancies as what they really were and contact the Council rather than launching an investigation like they would do here,and that had shut down the conversation.

Sometimes she wondered about the kind of life her twin was living. It didn't seem to have any basis in reality, even the basic conversation of what she'd like to study in college had turned up a distorted answer with more references to Stefan than she cared for. She remembered the scene when she had come back from practice to find Elena going through the book in which they jotted down monthly expenses with fascination. Eileen's talk of budgeting had gone over the girl's head, apparently being a Gilbert came with a lot of family money.

There had been a bit of bitterness that had stemmed from that one moment. Elena had never thought about what she would major in, what career she wanted. She hadn't thought beyond falling in love, apparently.

And Eileen thought of the folder full of different college brochures in her desk drawer, the bookmarked pages for scholarships on her laptop, the application essays she'd been outlining and writing up for the last year, the auditions she had marked on her calendar,the future she'd been planning for that was going to end in a few weeks and yes, she felt bitter.

But the rewards far outweighed the cost. Marlene was going to wake up.

As soon as they got Gavin away so Damon could do his thing.

Under her breath, so softly that no one but Damon would hear, Eileen muttered, "Get Elena to pretend to talk to Marlene about how she's going to take care of me."

So, when Gavin and she entered the room it was to Elena holding Marlene's unresponsive hand and saying, "-and I promise Eileen isn't ever going to feel alone because I'll be there for her."

Which was her cue. "She's not dead yet and I'd appreciate if you didn't act like it." Eileen said coldly, knowing the response it would get from Gavin and Elena. Elena's eyes turned very shiny and confused while Gavin tucked his arm around Eileen's waist and all but lifted her out of the room.

She could not have planned it better if she'd handed them scripts .

"Come on, Squirt, we need to talk." Gavin said and led her to the nearest vending machine, getting the Vitamin water he knew she adored. "Now have a drink and calm down."

"I'm plenty calm," She said but took a good gulp from the bottle anyway. "But she shouldn't have said that."

"Hey, if anything will wake your sister up it'll be some tarty girl who looks like you telling her that she'll take care of you. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants she needs to wake up and be a little less lazy." He said with a laugh but it was frayed at the ends. "So that's the twin, huh?"

She had told Gavin about Elena asking to meet her. Without Marlene there to act as her sounding board she hadn't known what to do and ended up going to Gavin for advice.

"Yep. Apparently she was raised by a pretty well off couple and only found out she was adopted some time ago. She found our birth mother who told her that I existed and ended up here."

"How are you taking it? Does the birth mother want to meet you or something?"

"Turns out that the birth mother died recently, just before telling her about me by the way. And the birth father is apparently the brother of her adoptive father."

Gavin's eyebrows rose to great heights. "You're telling me that she just found out that her uncle is her father."

"Did I mention that the birth mother faked her death to run away from her husband who is dating Elena's aunt and is also her history teacher and a close enough friend to act as her chaperone on this trip?"

"I could swear my mother made me watch a telenovela just like this."

Before she could respond, a crash cart went past them, nurses and doctors accompanying it and they followed it to Marlene's room. Elena came flying to her with tears in her eyes, "It's your sister, she woke up!"

And the dam she had been building up inside of her burst but it took Gavin throwing his arms around her and shushing and placating her in turns to realise that she was crying hysterically.

But it didn't matter, _none_ of it mattered, Marlene was awake!

* * *

Damon had to look away from the sight in front of him, feeling like a voyeur. Elena's twin was buried in the arms of some guy she called Gavin, sobbing away. With his better than human hearing he heard her wheezing sob and saw the fluttering of the small back accompanying it. The relief in that soft voice was hard to hear.

While they had been alone in that loft of hers Stefan and Elena had tried to come up with ways to convince the twin not to give up so easily. It was ridiculous and a conversation that he and Alaric didn't join in to at all. They didn't understand, they had no clue. They hadn't recognised the look in her eyes when she talked about her sister and it was going to be their downfall.

Damon knew what it was. Had seen it in the mirror every time he had thought of Katherine for the last hundred and fifty or so years.

Devotion. Utter absolute devotion. And not even the blind kind that Damon indulged in, no, she went into it knowing well what's he was facing, knowing well what was expected. And _her_ love unlike Damon's had been returned.

He knew that with absolute certainty, from the way her sister opened her eyes, looked around in pain and yet the first word she said was "Eileen." It was obvious from the way she had seen Elena and cringed away from her, frowning.

"Who are you and why do you look like my sister?!" She asked, knowing that it wasn't Eileen even when disoriented from waking up from a fucking coma, and _that_ was the moment her heartbeat sped up, _that_ was what brought the doctors and nurses rushing in with the crash cart.

Next to him, Elena bit her lip watching her twin being comforted by the man, "She'd really going to do this. She's really going to-to kill herself." She choked out, her voice filled with pity and Damon wanted to shake her and make her understand.

Eileen shouldn't be pitied, she should be _envied_. As the song said, _'The greatest you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return'_

And Eileen and her sister were living their lives honouring that one phrase. No, there was nothing to be pitied there.

* * *

3


	4. Chapter 4

4

* * *

It seemed like such an amazing change to see. Eileen became happier, she came alive bit by bit every single day as her sister got better. When the doctors insisted on studying Marlene's recovery Eileen tore them to bits, making them cry and brought her sister home instead. She smiled easier, laughed , actually laughed and not just that bitter sound he'd heard from her before.

And with every passing day as she bloomed, she also got closer to her death. This knowledge, the sword of Damocles hanging over them had Elena and Stefan convulsing with guilt.

Meanwhile everyone else pretended nothing was wrong. Damon charmed her sister, Alaric telling them they couldn't control what choices everyone else made and Eileen...

She swung between being ecstatic around her sister and frustrated with Stefan and Elena's honest attempts to save her. It was depressing knowing that the moments when they tried to talk her out of killing herself were the lowlights of her day.

It had gotten obvious to the point where Marlene was asking about it and Eileen...she just used it for her own purposes.

"What's going on between you and the twin?" Marlene asked of her sister while the two were in her room. As Damon and he both turned to look at the closed door behind which the two were, Elena and Ric, waited impatiently to know what was being said.

"It's just...you know about her Uncle being the biological father right?"

"Ohh yeah, that was great gossip, just amazing."

"Yes well, the uncle/bio dad is a bit of a flake, doesn't stay in one place for long and he's irresponsible and well, let's just say Daddy would not like him."

"And?"

"And Elena thinks I should go with her to Mystic Falls when they leave so that I get to meet him because there's no telling when he'll be in town again."

The amazing thing was, it wasn't even a lie. Elena had said all that about John, had said that he wasn't very reliable and that he was there to sit out the drama but she didn't know where he'd be after that. She hadn't said that with the intention of convincing Eileen to come to Mystic Falls, had mentioned it in passing to Alaric really, but she had said it.

Marlene was silent but then she sighed, "Well, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know, I mean he doesn't exactly seem like a person I'd like but..."

"But?"

"But I am curious and well, meeting him would help me figure out the family medical history. If there's anything I should be on the lookout for. I really don't want to go to the hospital for anything anytime soon."

"Wow, this whole coma whole thing really messed you up huh."

"No, I'm just _saying_. But I obviously can't just jet off now, I mean you just woke up and-"

"You should go. It sounds like fun and you should have to take care of me."

"Marlene sweetie, it's cute that you think anyone could ever _make_ me do something."

"Haha, you know what I mean. I feel fine honestly, you should go have fun while you still can. You get a couple of weeks off after the showcase right?"

"Yes, but-"

"So go. I mean, I almost want to go with you just to see you in a small little town out in the wilderness."

"I googled it _, it's so small!_ " Eileen said in a horrified whisper and Marlene burst into laughter.

"Oh my God, I would pay good money to see that! You have to go, seriously, pack your bags right now and the second your showcase is done, I want you to go with them and text me every little detail."

Stefan wanted to clap. It was a stunning performance, he was truly impressed by how she'd turned it around to make it seem like Marlene had to convince her to go out to Mystic Falls. All this while she was adamant that she had to keep up her end of the deal and come to Mystic Falls to die.

* * *

"What about roses?"

"No, she hates roses," Elena and Marlene were in a flower shop trying to pick out what flowers would go into the bouquet they'd give her. It was the day of Eileen's showcase and the day they would be leaving for Mystic Falls as well.

Elena felt the churning in her stomach get worse. She was literally leading her twin sister to her death. Picking these flowers felt like picking flowers for a grave.

"What about the daffodils?" They were nice, cheery and yellow. Elena had always liked daffodils.

"She doesn't like yellow flowers. Plus daffodils are narcissus so she'll start on the whole ego thing." Marlene laughed, "My sister can be a dick sometimes."

"She's not always this serious?" Elena asked. After all, she knew practically nothing about her twin while Marlene had spent her whole life with her. Elena was jealous, plain and simple.

And she wished her parents were alive. She wanted to ask them why they didn't take Eileen too, why just her. Did they not know about her? She liked to think so, because if they knew and still chose to take just Elena then it just brought up more questions. _John_ hadn't known, finding out about the other daughter he had and never met had had him spiralling into something that seemed like depression but acted like alcoholism.

Everything was just spinning out of control.

"She _is_ pretty serious but that's kind of the fun of it. Sometimes she'll say the most ridiculous things just to mess with them and people have no clue if she's being serious or not. You have not lived until you see people just floundering for days trying to figure out if she complimented them or called them the worst thing to ever exist, it is _hilarious_ ," Marlene giggled as if remembering something and Elena sighed. She wished she had such nice memories of Eileen too. Her twin didn't really seem to like her much. She didn't dislike her either but honestly Elena could deal with that. The apathy was not something she was used to. "It takes her time to warm up to people. It takes her years of knowing them to call people friends."

"Wow!" Elena and Bonnie had become best friends on their first play date when Bonnie gave her the zebra cracker because Elena had said it was her favourite animal.

"Yes, which is why if you cause my baby sister any emotional harm or pain whatsoever, I will bury your body alive in the woods of your precious little town and burn down every single thing you hold dear." Elena looked up from the pink tulips she was looking at and found Marlene smiling serene and pretty at some orange blossoms. As if she felt the eyes upon her Marlene looked up and met Elena's eyes and her smile deepened, eyes turning crescent shaped in glee.

Elena had received many, many threats in the last few months, from vampires and witches and werewolves.

None of them had terrified her as much as this one did.

* * *

 _This was it, her moment of triumph. When the audience, unseen for the glare of spotlights, would live solely through her. She was nameless, faceless, voiceless, she was only the vessel. The girl that was Eileen was gone and in her the story lived._

 _When she paused, they held their breath. When she leaped, they flew. When she turned, their world twisted. When she adored, they fell in love. When she broke, they grieved._

 _But then the spell broke. The lights dimmed, the shoes came off, the story reached its end and she was Eileen Henri again._

 _And whether it was disappointment or excitement she felt in her gut she didn't quite know._

* * *

They'd said their goodbyes, kept them brief and sweet. After all, as far as Marlene knew Eileen would be back home in a few weeks. It was just a little trip, a bit of fun. Her sister had squished her cheeks, talked about little babies growing up and then listed all the mad things she'd done on her spring breaks before making Eileen promise not to do them. Then they were on the road.

The two vampires made the journey easy. They didn't need to sleep so they drove all night with the humans packed into the back seat, Elena on one side of her, Mr Saltzman on the other. Her twin had fallen asleep an hour into the trip and Mr Saltzman had watched with no little amusement as Eileen tried to shift Elena's head from where it was lolling onto her shoulder without waking the girl up. Apart from a couple of school trips she'd never really been out of the city so Eileen kept her eyes peeled, watching the road and the scenery pass them by.

It wasn't nearly as interesting as the movies made it seem.

They passed a sign that read "Mystic Falls" and Eileen's phone chirped, a sound that woke Elena up.

' _Welcome to what will be your resting place, my dearest doppelg_ _änger_

 _-Klaus'_

* * *

4


	5. Chapter 5

5

* * *

"Wow, red carpet's all rolled out for me." Eileen said absently and Elena peered over her shoulder to read the text only for her eyes to widen as she yelled for Stefan. Damon who was driving the car jerked at the sound sending their seatbelt digging into them and Elena was left not just with a growing sense of panic but also physical pain.

"Klaus knows!" Elena couldn't help but say and Stefan turned to look at her but the rest were unfazed, Damon going so far as to shoot her a dirty look.

"You didn't have to yell," He said, rolling his eyes and Elena felt lost. Did they not understand what was going on? Their enemy knew of something he shouldn't have.

"Elena, we discussed this ages, ago. Klaus was bound to know." Eileen said.

"Not to this extent! He knows your cellphone number, that's not the same as knowing you exist!" They had reached the boarding house, dropping Alaric off at his apartment and Elena was...she was just losing it. Her lungs felt all closed up, every breath was a hardship and she could hear her heart beating away fast all the way up in her throat. Her vision blurred and as the lightheadedness grew, Elena hardly felt it when she was pulled out of the car, turned around and hugged to another chest. As the person holding her steadily breathed in and out, Elena followed their pattern. She had no idea how long it took but it felt like ages had past since the panic passed and she could breathe on her own again.

She turned to find that it was Eileen who had done this, who had calmed her down while the others gave them their space. Another thing to add to the tiny little list of things she knew about her twin, that she knew how to deal with people in the middle of a panic attack.

"Elena, don't freak out, yeah? You have got to chill out. Judging by the way things are going in this town, this is your new norm. You have to adjust to it or just leave, deal with it or move on."

"How can I not freak out, you're not listening to us when-"

"No, don't think about it, okay. You're not going to change my mind, that's out of the question. It would go against everything I believe in if I backed out of this." Elena started to protest but Eileen stopped her looking her straight in the eye, firm and unmoving. "Everything has a price. I wanted my sister back and this is the price I am willing to pay for it. That's not going to change. Now if you want to freak out about the fact that Klaus apparently has some way of tapping in on your conversations then that makes sense but you've got to really think about it. Figure it out, figure out how he's doing this, how to stop him. Pull together the resources you have and do that. But you've got to understand that you'll be doing it for your peace of mind, so that you can maintain some control over your life. Don't make it about me."

"But this is about you!" It was about Eileen and the fact that she was going to be sacrificed just so that some Original vampire could unlock his heritage. It was all about her.

Wasn't it?

"It's really not. Look, all of this, Katherine, Klaus, the werewolves even Damon, they're all problems that you've been facing for far longer than you even knew I existed, and they'll continue to be thorns in your side after I'm gone. You owe me nothing. We may share the same DNA but as you've found out, that's not exactly a rarity. Just for a moment imagine that someone escaped the whole purge that Klaus did of Katerina's family. Imagine that there's two bloodlines, maybe even more, of Petrovas, and consequently other possible doppelgängers . You and I have about the same in common as those hypothetical other doppelgängers . Practically nothing."

Every word Eileen said felt like a blow to her gut.

Maybe it was all in her head, but Elena had gone to find her expecting a sister and what she got was a stranger who shared the same face instead. Even now Elena couldn't help but want more, wanted something that was even an iota of what she and Marlene shared and it was heartbreaking knowing that she'd never get it.

But...but Eileen was right too. Not about them being nothing to one another, Elena was not yet willing to accept that as an answer but she was right in that this was Elena's life now. She could never go back to just being a normal teenager again even if she wanted to. Being normal wouldn't change the fact that her best friend was a witch, and the other was a vampire, that she was in love with a vampire, didn't change that Tyler was a werewolf or that she was a Gilbert, that her brother's ring brought him back to life when he died.

Normal was never going to be something she was so she had to learn to deal with this.

"You okay?" Stefan asked and she realised it had been quiet for far too long.

"I'm fine, I just…needed to hear that."

"Alright, I'll be right upstairs if you need anything, okay?" He asked and she nodded, realising now that they were the only people there. Soon Stefan was gone and Elena was left there in the living room of the Salvatore Boarding house alone. In a glass vase was Eileen's bouquet that Marlene and Elena had chosen. Orange blossoms, hydrangeas and lemon verbena. Marlene had chosen the lemon verbena and Elena had no way of explaining why she was laughing so much back then. 'I love the it smells', Marlene had said and Elena had wondered if she would ever grow to love the smell of vervains like that.

Such a tiny, tiny little thing and so deadly to the big, bad vampires even the Originals. Elena would learn how to be that. But for that she needed to know more about Klaus, about doppelgängers , about everything.

There was one resource that they'd left practically untapped. So Elena went down the stairs, down into the basement and pulled the white oak dagger out of Elijah's chest.

* * *

The commotion woke her up. Eileen had just settled in for a little nap, having stayed awake the entire trip, when the sound of doors slamming loudly echoed through the empty house and then Damon bellowed, "He's not here."

So, yes, she woke up. Trudging down the stairs, she found herself following the raised voices, trying to yell over one another until indistinct and found herself in the kitchen. Damon and Elena were yelling at one another while Stefan kept a careful eye on the other man in the place.

He was a vampire too, that much was obvious from the blood bag he was happily glutting himself on. He stopped suddenly looking at Eileen with unabashed shock and curiosity.

"You're not Katerina." He said and Eileen sighed.

"No, I am not. What gave it away? The fact that I'm not as stacked as her?" If Elena had been mistaken for Katherine then they must have looked alike and that was one of the things that was distinctly different between her and Elena, the fact that she was a lot more curvy than her.

"You're standing in third position." The man said dryly and Eileen looked down to see her feet had done exactly that.

"Eileen Henri," She said and held out her hand for him to shake. The blood bag was put away and the man rose to his feet, bending over her hand to kiss it.

"Elijah Mikaelson. Pleasure to meet you."

Eileen blinked. "You know, I have wondered, why do you want to kill Klaus?"

"I'd like to know that too." Elena said and completely ignored Damon to sit down at the table. Elijah took a seat as well and drained the blood bag dry before beginning.

"Klaus is my brother."

"Of course, that makes perfect sense," Eileen turned to Elena who was clearly still processing this. "Remember when you wanted to kill Jeremy and you planned alliances with his enemies so that you could weaken him and do exactly that?"

Elena caught on quickly, "Yes, it was the time of my life." She grinned exaggeratedly and waved her hands in 'excitement'. Elijah frowned but finally continued.

"Our parents were humans. My father was a wealthy landowner in a village in Eastern Europe. Our mother bore seven children and...there aren't as many of us now but we're known as the Originals because we were the original vampires. We were always a close family but my father and Klaus didn't get along. When we were turned into vampires we discovered why. Klaus was not his son. He was a result of our mother's dalliance with a werewolf. Of course, when my father found out he hunted down my mother's lover and her entire family."

"What does that make Klaus?" Elena asked.

"And how does all of that make you want to kill Klaus instead of the parents. You're not blaming him for breaking up the family are you?" Even as the words left her mouth, Eileen knew that wasn't true. Elena and the others had explained that Elijah was once a good friend of Klaus' and that the falling out was a relatively recent thing and they must have found out about their mum sleeping around back when they'd first turned into vampires.

"The Curse of the Sun and the Moon, it's a fake. Just a way to get both warring species looking for the same objects. To make it easier for us. There is a curse but it's one on Klaus, binding his werewolf side. The truth is he's a hybrid but for a thousand years the curse our mother put on him to keep his werewolf side dormant."

"Okay, so the curse is something specific to Klaus, we get that. Your family really needed counselling, we get that. But why does that make you want to kill him?" Eileen reiterated. She wondered if this was how it always went in Mystic Falls, a good hour of dramatic posturing before they got to the point.

"Well, Klaus was not my only brother. I had siblings, parents. I had a family. Over the centuries, Klaus hunted them down one by one and he took them from me. He scattered them across the seas where their bodies could not be found."

Eileen threw her hands in the air. This was getting nowhere. "You are talking about centuries, right, centuries? But see, Katerina and all that stupidity happened what, five hundred years ago, yeah? So until at least five hundred years ago you were still your brother's right hand man."

"More than that." Damon said, finally entering the conversation. "Rose said things changed a hundred or so years ago. That it was only recently that they thought they could appeal for mercy from you because you had broken from Klaus."

"A hundred years, that's not really that much time at all, not to someone who's... what, a thousand years old? So what changed? What changed for you? And what changed for Klaus that after nine hundred years he did something to drive you off?"

* * *

5


	6. Chapter 6

6

* * *

"You don't think he can do it?" Elena asked Eileen. They were both in Elena's car headed to Elena's house where Jeremy, John and Jenna were waiting to meet Eileen.

Elijah had said that Klaus had killed his siblings and thrown them into the sea where he couldn't even reach them but when asked why Klaus would suddenly do that, why it had hurt him so much that he wanted to kill him, he had no answer.

And Elena's twin had made it plenty clear that she didn't think much of it, had said to Elijah's face that he wasn't very convincing. She, Damon and Stefan had piped up with anecdotes of how easily Elijah had killed in front of them, had told her about Trevor, about the werewolves but in the end even they admitted that casual murder of strangers was very different to casual murder of a formerly beloved brother as Eileen pointed out.

"I really truly don't."

"But why? I mean...Stefan once trapped and vervained Damon to keep him from doing harm."

"That's not the same thing as killing Damon. And you saw the way Elijah talked about Klaus, he hates him sure, but he hates him because he used to adore him at some point. That kind of history is hard to shake off, Klaus could easily lie and say something to distract him or turn him to his side. Hell, Elijah could even decide that since Klaus is his only living family now that he might as well go off with him. I think he could kill Klaus but it would have to be a crime of passion or opportunity, not premeditated murder. If he stood to gain something from killing Klaus maybe a planned murder would made sense but for revenge, no."

Elena considered what Eileen was saying and sighed. "Sometimes I wish you wouldn't make as much sense as you did."

"I don't understand why you want so badly to kill Klaus in the first place, sure he has to sacrifice people to break the curse but didn't Damon kill your former history teacher on a whim?And you were trying to convince me that Elijah could kill his brother by pointing out instances of his murders too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we're clones of some really old lady, you're dating a guy who once dated and fought said old lady and is currently going through his vegetarian phase-don't think you can just ignore what Elijah said about him being a Ripper-and his brother has admitted to murdering many people just to keep up his bad boy rep while your best friend is hearing the voices of bitter old ancestors and your other best friend accidentally murdered someone because she was hungry. At what point do you, I or any of your circle get to play judge and jury in this situation and decide that Klaus is a freak of nature? It's one thing to fight him knowing that he's coming for you, that's self-preservation but beyond that there's no real moral high ground for any of you to take."

Luckily they'd reached so Elena didn't have to respond to the fact that her twin considered her and her friends to be on the same level as a thousand year old mass murdering psychopath.

They walked to the front door, Eileen following her and Elena stood for a while wondering what she should do. Use her key and just walk in or ring the bell and give them some warning.

This was awkward for more than one reason. Elena spent so much time at the Boarding house, even had her name on the lease now to make into a safehouse, that the house she grew up in felt strange sometimes. And then there was Eileen to consider.

Jeremy and Bonnie had been suspicious, all their run ins with Katherine too fresh on their mind. This little dinner wasn't just Elena introducing her twin to her family but also an attempt to convince Jeremy and by extension Bonnie that Eileen wasn't just leading them on only to leave them high and dry when it came down to it, she wasn't just lulling them into a false sense of security. This was important enough that she'd put her foot down and kept Damon and Stefan away so that they couldn't ruin this.

But that didn't mean that Elena herself wouldn't ruin it.

But Eileen at least understood and even appreciated Jeremy's paranoia. She made an effort, got all dressed up, her hair pulled into a sophisticated braided bun, a pretty sundress with a pineapple print that somehow looked mature and dignified on her and the tupperware her hands were clenched around.

"Your boyfriend's parents must have loved you," Eileen was a neat, mature young woman who reeked of self-respect and dignity.

"The last boyfriend I had was back in middle school and his father lectured me on how to be a be a great trophy wife while his mother got drunk on her Irish coffee but not before offering me a mug of the same." Eileen shrugged. "I used to think my life was fairly strange and that I had a bad handle on social interactions but the last week has made me feel like a truly well-adjusted person who recognises the merit of high standards. Now, let's get this over with, shall we?" She said and rang the bell.

* * *

Eileen was uncomfortable. She didn't really do well when it came to meeting new people, not for casual purposes. Introductions were possibly the worst reason to meet people. And this was bound to be particularly excruciating.

Elena's aunt, Jenna, had absolutely no clue about the supernatural world but her brother and her uncle/biological father did. That was going to limit conversations, especially since Elena had said that John was wracked with guilt at not knowing that he had another daughter while her brother was sensible enough to be afraid it was Katherine pretending to be a twin. Talking at these multiple cross purposes was not going to be fun.

The door was opened by a sullen looking boy, Jeremy she presumed. He glared at her suspiciously but when he looked at her properly he did seem taken aback.

"You don't look _exactly_ like Elena."

That must have been a comfort. From what she heard, Katherine did look exactly like Elena but with curly hair rather than Elena's pin straight locks. Given that hair straighteners existed that little tidbit wasn't useful in way of a distinguishing characteristics.

"I already knew that." Eileen told the boy and stepped in, judging by the satisfied look on his face she must have passed another test. "Not a vampire either." She guessed, correctly.

The sound of crashes from inside the house kept him from answering and with a wince he led them in, "Come on, Uncle John hasn't been sober for a while now."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Elena said and rushed towards the crashing sounds leaving Jeremy and Eileen alone. Jeremy walked slowly, clearly wanting to grill her before sitting down to dinner. Considering that the noises of crashing were now accompanied by Elena's yelling Eileen had no problem with that plan.

"So, are you looking at any specific colleges?" Eileen asked for lack of a conversation starter and Jeremy was merciful enough to take it seriously, albeit with an eye roll.

"Still have a year to go. I figured I'd try to see which direction the situation here is going in. I like drawing and art but that's not going to be useful to fight vampires and werewolves."

"I mean when I was looking at the courses NYU offers, Vampire and Werewolf Handling 101 wasn't exactly on the list." Jeremy laughed bitterly and Eileen felt a bit sorry for him. "Maybe you can do crisis management and art? A dual major? I mean, I was planning on doing dance and childhood education, so."

Jeremy shrugged, "Whitmore college has this Occult Studies class, it's actually pretty legit and my girlfriend's grandmother used to teach there. I figured I could take that and something pre-med I guess."

"Yes, but is a degree in it actually necessary? Can't you just sit in on classes?" Eileen made a face, "Actually doing homework in it would be pretty tiring."

"Yeah but I'd get the credits for the class, right?"

"Still, it's not exactly a versatile field." So far Jeremy seemed to be shaping up to be her favourite Gilbert, "So, what kind of art do you do?"

"You know what, you seem pretty cool," Jeremy said and Eileen was confused at the change of topic.

"Erm-"

"So just a heads up, don't get too comfortable."

"I...am not feeling particularly comfortable to begin with."

He snorted, "Yes well, my uncle, your father, has spent the last week in a haze of alcohol. And he let it slip to Jenna about the vampires, werewolves, _everything_."

"Oh dear," She knew that Elena had wanted to keep her aunt in the dark about this all. On the one hand Eileen had thought that Jenna was probably safer knowing about vampires in this town filled with them with a council of founders who were keeping an eye on it even. But given that she herself was keeping Marlene in the dark about the doppelgänger , the sacrifice bits and the fact that it was a vampires super healing blood that had brought of her coma, it would have been hypocritical for Eileen to object to it all.

"Yeah, Jenna's kind of testing Elena, she even had notes on how she would sort of push Elena into talking about it."

" _I KNOW YOUR BOYFRIEND'S A BLOOD SUCKING CREATURE OF THE NIGHT!"_

Eileen blinked as Jeremy facepalmed. They entered the dining room to see Elena looking stricken and horrified, near tears but still willing to fight her aunt over this while the man sitting at the table, exhausted took one look at Eileen peering into the room and gulped down what little was left in the bottle of scotch in front of him.

And then the yelling started again.

"There goes the fun family dinner." Jeremy sighed and Eileen cursed under her breath.

"Here," She handed Jeremy the brownies she'd made. Marlene had said that she shouldn't go to anybody's house for the first time empty handed, especially for dinner. But it looked like dinner had been postponed. As Jeremy thanked her and went into the room to add his own two cents _('She deserved to know, you're not her mother Elena, not mine either'_ ), Eileen dialled Damon's phone, "Hey, do you mind picking me up from the Gilbert house?"

Elena was her ride there and she didn't think the town had much in way of cabs.

* * *

"Hello Mr Saltzman," The Doppelgänger—the Better Doppelgänger as he called her in his mind to differentiate between her and Elena—said and Klaus found that he was irked by it, irked by being called a name that was so clearly not his. He had possessed many a person in his long lifetime but it had never been this... _ **dull**_.

It was just waiting, not even anticipation. There wasn't even much Klaus could do to turn them against one another for fun either, they were already at odds with one another. Necessity kept them together and trying but without an enemy to fixate upon properly, they fell apart.

It was terribly boring and he wasn't even getting much in way of information. Certainly, finding Elijah awake had been something but it was _Elijah_ , after all. The better doppelgänger was right, his brother lacked conviction and Klaus already knew how to weaken his conviction even further. Right now his brother was inside watching the children fight, making his snide little remarks to confound them further as more of their family history was revealed. The minute that was done, he was going back to his body, this weak little human shell was getting itchy. A compulsion on the man and he wouldn't even act any different. He could even compel the man to report to him every day and et voila, an instant spy.

(Although he did have a _little_ bit of fun when the Bad Doppelgänger's aunt called 'Alaric' to yell at him at great length while he put all the blame her niece instead.)

"Call me Ric."

"Mr Saltzman, you're the ex-boyfriend of my twin's aunt, her history teacher and my birth mother's ex-husband. I don't that qualifies for first name basis."

"Ah well, if being intimate with your birth mother doesn't qualify for first name basis, then I suppose I'll be Mr Saltzman for eternity."

She smiled, a small innocuous little thing, at that before the sounds of yelling began filtering from the house again. "Are they always like this?" She asked, her shoulder shrugged in the direction of the Salvatore Boarding house in which the children were all fighting.

"Do you really want to know the answer?" Klaus deflected. He was almost certain this was their norm but Eileen was smarter than they gave her credit for and retaining ambiguity seemed ideal for now. After all, he didn't really know if they were 'always like this'.

She scrunched her nose but didn't say anything for a long while, choosing to look up at the sky instead. "How long until the full moon?" She finally asked and he followed her sight to the waning moon.

"Twenty days," Technically 19 days 5 hours and 35 minutes. Klaus knew when the full moon would be down to the second; felt it in his bones, a sort of moon sense, could feel it rise even if he couldn't see it. That rush of energy as his body desperately wanted to transform, held back by his curse like lead chains, like being tied to a stake once again and having a part of his body, mind and soul pushed down by a curse again. He had lived it for every full moon for a thousand years.

" _Fuck_." She said, soft and hard, her voice holding all the frustration he hadn't let himself express and he turned to her in surprise.

Klaus didn't think he'd heard curse before, how strange. Wasn't this generation supposed to be free with their language?

What was it that frustrated her though? Was she regretting it, offering herself up as a sacrifice already? Was he counting down the days sadly? Did he need to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't run off?

"Living in this town for that long is going to get old really fast." Her mouth twisted and his snort surfside her, "What's so funny?"

"Figured you might be getting cold feet."

"Oh no, my honour's on stake here. Not getting cold feet because of that. If anything, coming here has just solidified my decision."

"Why?"

When she looked at him, there was so much feeling on that face, so much confusion and puzzlement, so much pity it was as if she was on stage again. That was the only time she truly came alive before. "No one here is _happy_." She said softly, leaning in closer. "It's like the town is in this form of stasis, no one seems to be moving on. And I figure being the clone of some ancient lady, I'd get sucked into this supernatural sort of life at some point anyway so I'm just kind of glad to have an expiry date. At least then I won't be angsting all over the place." She paused then, suddenly with a very thoughtful look and Klaus found himself actually waiting with bated breath to hear what she was thinking over so carefully.

"Unless...is this just a small town thing? Do these sorts of places with less than ten thousand residents get like this?" She asked him earnestly and he couldn't help the laughter.

"You've never been out of the city have you?"

"Never. There are so many insects here but none of them are cockroaches! It's very strange." She was actually frowning in confusion, utterly befuddled and Klaus laughed again.

"So have you decided how you'll be hiding your death by exsanguination? Still going with a car crash?"

She brightened up almost immediately. He really wanted to remind her that it was her death they were talking about, the glee was a bit misplaced. "No, I'm going with something much more sensible. So I figure we'll say Elena and her friends took me out hiking and a loose rock fell on me, killing me instantly. Dropping an actual rock on me should do the trick, enough disfiguration that the bite on the neck will be sort of lost in the mess but the rest of my body will be enough for a proper identification and Damon and Stefan or whoever can compel the morgue or whoever's conducting the autopsy to not realise that I was drained of blood _before_ the whole head smashing thing happened."

"Please darling, do try to curb your enthusiasm," The words had barely left his mouth when Elijah came out of the house, speeding out of it with a vigour Klaus hadn't seen since Tatia, picking 'Alaric' up by the neck and proceeding to fly into the woods nearby.

In this body, strengthened as he was with spells, Klaus could only hold on to his brother, the shouts of the Mystic Falls gang falling out of earshot far too quickly and in the deep of the woods, Elijah threw him down onto the forest floor. "Possession, brother, really?"

And Klaus could only laugh. Of course he saw through his disguise. He knew there was a reason why Elijah was his favourite "Well you know what they say, old dogs, new tricks and all that."

* * *

6


	7. Chapter 7

7

* * *

"What gave it away, brother?" Klaus couldn't help but ask. Elijah had let him go, clearly not fearing him as much while he was in this mortal body. Or perhaps his brother wanted to have a bit of a chat, he couldn't put it past Elijah. He was a vicious, cruel person prone to fits of anger and self-righteous fury like the rest of the Original Family but Elijah remained the only 'diplomatic' person of them all.

"I haven't spoken too often to Alaric but the hunter didn't seem the type to drop affectionate little terms every other sentence." Elijah sighed and unbuttoned his jacket slowly pacing the little clearing. "Honestly Klaus, you weren't even trying. Just your luck that the Mystic Hills' Scooby gang isn't particularly smart."

"Eileen would have figured it out." The words left his mouth almost unbidden in defence of his doppelgänger.

"Of course but she isn't exactly part of the gang is she?" Elijah stopped in his pacing suddenly and looked at Klaus with a frown. "You actually like her."

"I've always liked doppelgängers, it's just never been a permanent liking." His liking for them was like comets and falling stars, shining for a brief moment but then disappearing into oblivion.

"No, no, no,this...this isn't like Tatia or Katerina. I think you might actually _respect_ the girl!" Another time and Klaus would laugh. His brother looked so utterly aghast and shocked at the very thought of Klaus respecting someone. Quite unfair of him. Klaus was sure there were plenty of people he respected. He couldn't particularly remember any at the moment, but they did exist.

Well, there were _probably_ people he respected.

"Well, my standards for general conversation have lowered since I hid Rebekah and the others away and she's one of the few who matches up to them."

"What do you mean _hid_ them? You threw them into the ocean, don't you remember?"

And Klaus who'd pretty much planned to come clean to Elijah anyway if only to keep him from interfering in his plans replied with utter honesty. "Mikael was on our trail. I had to keep them safe somehow. Rumours of death were the safer way to go."

Elijah sped up to him fisting his hands in Alaric's ugly safari shirt collar and lifting him off the ground in anger. "What did you do Klaus?!"

"I did what I had to."

For a moment Klaus believed Elijah might actually kill him. His brother shook with anger, the trembling extending to the hands that were holding Klaus up against the tree. But finally he let him go and Klaus hit the ground harder than he liked.

He really hated human bodies. So fragile, so weak.

"You controlling, narcissistic bastard." All of those things were absolutely true and Klaus was perfectly with being called that.

(In the depths of his mind in a little part that h would forever deny because it was immature even by his standards, a voice said 'I know I am but what are you?' and sniggered)

"Where are they?" Elijah demanded and Klaus rolled his eyes.

"I'm not telling you yet."

"Kla-"

"Once the curse is broken and I have more like me willing to rise, willing to fight Mikael, only then Elijah."

Elijah threw his hands in the air and walked off, "Christ, save me from overprotective brothers with God complexes."

And to his back Klaus shot back, "We're Vikings not Christian infidels, Elijah!"

Elijah continued walking and soon Klaus was left alone to make the sorry realisation that he was in the middle of a forest in a human body that walked very slowly.

"Son of a bitch."

Klaus began his long trek back, making sure to call Greta and Maddox to set up the ritual. He wanted to be back in his body as soon as possible.

* * *

Eileen had to get out of the boarding house. Alaric had called them later on, saying that Elijah had just wanted to talk, one grown up to another about primarily dealing with him because he didn't trust Elena and that he was fine. Elena had been distraught at the slander and Stefan was consequently cheering her up in his room.

With sex. Fairly loud sex that had Damon drinking because he was hung up on Elena and Eileen feeling very, very uncomfortable.

Not only because they were loud but also...Elena wasn't eighteen yet while Stefan was an actual century and more older.

Statutory rape. How were they ignoring that fact?! Even if Stefan was supposedly immortalised as a seventeen year old via vampirism, that still didn't change the fact that he was actually much older. And then Damon's revelation that he'd slept with Caroline the year before when they were 'dating'. Eileen knew they were messed up but she had thought that they would wait until Elena and Caroline turned eighteen at least. It made her sick.

And made her wonder if vampires' permanent physical youth extended to their mentality as well, keeping them 'juvenile' in mind for far longer than they should. It was fascinating in the car crash sort of way. Calling the emergency services didn't make you any less of a useless spectator and didn't make you want to throw up any less either.

So she went to Mystic Grill instead, which had been a chore in itself. Eileen hadn't driven since her driving test. They didn't even own a car and Damon's car was a manual too.

It took a while but finally she was in Mystic Grill and sat down at a table in the corner where she was less likely to be noticed.

"Hi, welcome to Mystic Grill, what can I get y-Elena?"

Eileen just couldn't catch a break. "Not Elena, Eileen the long lost twin sister come down for a visit. You must be Max." Elena had said her friend worked at Mystic Grill.

"Matt, actually."

"So, what's the cheapest thing on the menu that will let me stay here for a few hours?"

"I-Elena has a twin?"

"She didn't know about me until recently and yeah. So…?"

The boy jolted himself out of his thoughts, "Right, yeah, I guess a coffee or fries would let you stay here for a while."

"Coffee and fries it is, thank you."

"Right, I'll get it." He said but hesitated, "I'm sorry I just...they didn't even tell me that she was adopted."

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know about it either until a week or so ago."

"Right, I...right." And then the hesitation grew pointed, like he had a reason to stick around. "Listen you shouldn't stay here for too long. The town's a bit dangerous."

And EIleen looked up. She knew that his sister was supposedly involved in all this for a bit. "Thanks for the warning. I know that your sister's death must have been…" Eileen searched for the right words but couldn't quite find polite ones for it, "it must have been shit."

He closed off, "Is that what they told you? I suppose they said it was the drugs, that she deserved it-"

"Matt, I only just met Elena, we're not going to be braiding each other's hair and gossiping about people just yet." He snorted as if he knew that wasn't true. To be fair if they'd been friends for so long he must have known Elena's tendency to spill. "So, fries and coffee?"

"I'll get your fries and coffee." He shook his head as he walked off.

"Hello Eileen," Alaric's voice came from behind her in a sing songy tone and she all but collapsed into the table. She just wanted some peace and quiet so she could pointedly not think about the lack of legality in her twin's sexual life but people just kept on bumping into her. "How are you today on this wonderful day?"

"Why are you so happy?"

"Oh I'm going to getting a new lease on life this afternoon." He said happily. "What's gotten you so glum?"

Alaric talked with more of a British accent when he was happy. The girl who ran the theater club back in school used to do that too. She was a Julie Andrews fans.

"Stefan and Elena are engaging in relations." Eileen hoped that this one person, the one adult in their life got where she was going with this.

"Loud?"

Apparently he didn't.

"No, she's not eighteen yet but he's hundreds of years older than her!"

"Ah, the age of consent thing. Once they start murdering people other legal barriers don't matter that much either."

"But that's still so wrong and no one else is bothered?!"

"It's interesting, I have met a fair few vampires and the way people treat them and their life experiences affect them more than anything else. You could be middle aged, but if you don't look like it or have any of the experiences of middle age, no midlife crisis due to aging, no children who're growing up and leaving, no thinking about saving up for when you're retried, all these normal sorts of things, then you don't feel your age. And while Stefan and Damon aren't _that_ old they are old enough that the culture clash comes into play. In 1864 when they were turned, the age of consent probably didn't exist so that's not even something that they've been brought up to think of as part of their morality let alone a taboo that they're actively breaking."

"Alright fine, but even then how do Elena and Caroline not realise how screwed up this is?"

Alaric gave her a patronising look. "Well, there's a reason why the law considers them to be too young to make their decisions."

That made sense too, how horrible. "How am I the only person creeped out by this?"

"You are mature beyond your years, child." Alaric said and Eileen snorted.

"I'm really glad you called me child. The world feels a bit more sane now."

Alaric burst into almost maniacal laughter. He laughed so much that he fell off the chair and had to be helped up by Elijah who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Do I want to know?" She asked the Original Vampire who looked just as confused and fed up as she felt.

"I highly doubt it." He beckoned Alaric to leave, "Come along, let's go open your special parcel now."

And Alaric him followed gasping 'Sane!' in between guffaws.

"What was that all about?" Matt asked setting down a basket full of fries and coffee in front of her, watching his history teacher run off while still laughing hysterically.

"I have been reliably informed that I don't want to know what that was about."

She took a large swig of the coffee and began her mental countdown. Nineteen days left.

* * *

The situation was getting worse day by day. It was day 16 in the countdown to curse breaking and Eileen was getting very fed up. Alaric had been acting weird and withdrawn, going so far as to ask to stay at the Boarding house because of a pipe burst in his apartment yet somehow spending even lesser time with them than he had before, Elijah kept dropping in on multiple occasions, asking her invasive questions that she didn't answer and doing his best to gauge Eileen while drinking tea and Elena and Stefan were having sex by the bucket to get over their shared 'angst', which left a very irritable and morose Damon as her constant companion.

And Eileen hadn't danced properly in a _week_! IT was getting out of hand.

This was not something Eileen dealt with very well, this cabin fever. Things went belly up when she got really truly bored, not just for herself but for others too. Marlene said that it was just usual chaos of the world but that when Eileen was bored she had the time and capacity to play spectator to it instead of distracting herself with work, essays and dance. It was what she said to make Eileen feel better about what she thought to be her strange luck when she was bored. Perhaps it was a doppelgänger thing but things got weird when she was this blasé.

Last time she was really truly bored Gavin and Marlene got high on the 'special' brownies his roommate gave him and he ended up breaking his leg trying to break dance while Marlene was arrested by campus police for using a cylindrical pillow as her strap on and knocking on doors to show off her giant 'penis'.

This time she sat at a table at the Mystic Grill with her usual order of fries and coffee and wondered if she should take up running. And then her phone rang. Despite it being a unknown number she picked up and was treated to the sound of a British voice purring into her ear the very words she was living. " _I'm bored."_

"May I know who's speaking?"

" _Lost my number, love? And after I was so kind as to welcome you to town too, tch tch tch."_

Klaus. The thousand year old vampire was calling her, the girl he was soon to be killing, because he was bored.

"I'm at the Mystic Grill if you want to hang out."

The call was cut and in the time it took her to finish eating another fry, a man stood in front of her with a crooked little smile. He had a brightness to his eyes, an actual gleam and seemed to be very excited.

"Allow me to introduce myself," He said and it was the same voice that she'd been hearing a few minutes ago the accent making it even easier to recognise, "I'm Klaus Mikaelson, I'll be your murderer this full moon."

And Eileen couldn't help the awkward smile. "I already knew that."

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter seems cracky, I know. I figure Klaus is very high energy and just waiting for the full moon drives him stir crazy and Eileen doesn't do well with drama and angst without having an outlet for it all via ballet. The next one should be better.


	8. Chapter 8

**8**

* * *

It was one week to the full moon, just one week left and still Elena had made no headway with her twin. Eileen refused to even consider that there might be ways to save her, ways to keep her from dying and to Damon's offer to feeding her his blood so she would turn when she died she had point blank said she would 'burn the entire town down given the opportunity and motive' and that Damon turning her would give her both.

Bonnie and Caroline had _approved_ of this, Damon had said a simple 'Fair enough' and given up and John had gotten drunk again.

Elena had rarely even seen her this last week, she kept leaving the house whenever she could despite telling her to be careful with Klaus around.

"I know she doesn't like me," Elena said and her friends looked surprised at that admission. It annoyed Elena, she wasn't as unaware as they liked to make her out to be. She just didn't always know how to confront things. "But I'm just worried, I don't even know where she goes and-"

"Mystic Grill." Caroline said, "Matt says she's been coming there for the last week has a new friend she's made."

"You knew?"

Caroline frowned, "You didn't? She isn't exactly hiding it. Yesterday when I was picking up our order she was there with the guy again and Elijah was there too."

"She might be there with him right now," Elena realised and got to her feet. She didn't like the thought of her twin being alone with an Original and rallied her friends to come with her despite many protests.

They found her at a small table a bit out of the way with a man who was clearly not Elijah and probably the friend that Caroline had told them about. Elena put on her biggest brightest smile and moved toward their table. Eileen's friend noticed them and pointed them out. The sigh Eileen let out was unheard but so very visible in the sudden slump of her shoulders, even from the distance, that Elena felt more than a bit hurt.

Especially when the man Eileen was with lit up like a Christmas tree trying to suppress his laughter badly at her twin's reaction.

"Hi Eileen, I was looking for you at the boarding house, who's your friend?"

"Elena this is my friend-"

"Nick, pleasure to meet you." The man interrupted and he and Eileen had a silent conversation that ended with her rolling her eyes. "And you must be Elena, Bonnie, Caroline, Damon and Stefan."

"Eileen told you about us?" Elena could barely control the hope in her voice.

"No, Elijah did."

"You know Elijah?" Bonnie stepped forward and everyone became alert. They didn't quite trust Elijah nor anyone who worked with him.

"Well, with the Martins dead I thought it would be a bit remiss of me to leave him to deal with you all on his own."

Bonnie curled in on herself, all her suspicion deflated as she was filled with guilt instead and Elena looked at her, worried. She hadn't gotten over Luka's death and their part in it, Damon telling her to get over it already not helping things much.

Meanwhile, Caroline got another table close by to empty and they sat it turning to the two who looked more than a bit annoyed.

"So what were you guys talking about?"

"Sex workers' rights."

"What?" That was so out of the blue that Elena didn't know how to react.

Eileen squared her shoulder, her back straightening and her hands waving about in her passion as she spoke. "The fact that legalisation of prostitution and other sex related services allows for proper regulations to be made regarding the safety of both, the sex workers and the clients."

"That's not going to happen, most countries are too non-secular and believe in sex as a 'holistic' thing, they're never going to legalise it." Nick said and Eileen was visibly riled up.

"They will if the people change their minds on it, it's not like religious folks don't buy sex, the stigma around it is societal, change will happen even if takes time. I mean masturbation was stigmatised for the longest time, institutions pushed the idea that it would cause blindness and disease etc to stop it and now it's utterly commonplace in our culture!"

"Still won't happen within your lifespan."

"My lifespan is ending a week from now, that doesn't mean jack shit, there are already activists fighting for rights and now they have platforms like they didn't before-"

"Wait, he knows?!"

The two gave her a look, "He did say he was here on Elijah's behalf, right?"

"Yes but...you're not going to stop her?"

"Well," The man started to say leaning back in his chair a little smirk on his face that reminded Elena of something, she just couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was but it was just so familiar, "2000 years ago Eileen's ancestor, Eve took a bite from an apple and suddenly this thing called _free will_ began and-"

"Ugh, ignore him, he's just trying to annoy me for stopping to fight with that bitchy couple in Smithville about how idiotic Creationism is."

"Smithville?"

"We drove out there last week for their 90's movie screenings. It was pretty cool, I'd never seen The Mummy on the big screen before."

"All this time you've just been-"

"Hanging out having fun. Yeah."

"It's better than hanging around being all morose for your lats few days on Earth."

"I was hoping that maybe you'd like to come home with me for a bit, I mean Jenna's finally gotten used to the idea of vampires and-"

"Elena," Her twin started with a grave tone finally looking her straight in the eye and Elena knew she wouldn't what she would hear, "While you and Stefan have been cooped up trying to see what plans you can come up with to save me, something I keep on telling you not to do, I have been seeing your family all around town."

"What?"

"Well, Jenna's thesis was finally approved and she was here with Alaric celebrating and we got to talking, Jeremy's been chatting with me about college because the courses he's looking into are pretty much what Gavin's done. John, I'll admit, I don't know too well but even then I've come across him stumbling out of the bar and...bursting into tears when he sees me." Eileen put her chin down on a hand and shrugged. "You don't talk about anything of substance beyond the supernatural, anytime I've tried to start a conversation about the things that matter to me you shut me down saying I was deflecting. At first I thought it was a small town thing, like there aren't many opportunities to follow different interests and you were just honing in on this one thing but apparently that's a you thing."

"In Elena's defense you think everything is a small town issue." Nick interjected and Eileen rolled her eyes.

"And in _my_ defense, it really is a very small town. By the way, Klaus informed me that he'd be picking me up tomorrow."

"What?!" Elena practically shouted and for the first time she could see the unease on everyone else's faces as well, even as Eileen kept a straight face. "Klaus has been keeping in touch with you?"

"We text, we chat. He's even seen Marie Taglioni dance! Can you imagine it, she originated the role of La Sylphide, the first ballerina to really showcase en pointe work!"She clapped her hands in rapture before shaking it off. "So anyway, I'll be packing today so it's actually great that you guys are here. We can discuss everything, so Damon's going to handle the staging of the 'accident' in which I die, I'm supposed to be staying with Jenna and you in your house so she'll be the one to talk to Marlene about me, although you're actually better at the whole hysteria thing so in case it needs to be more convincing we can get you in and...that's it really. Everything's already set up."

"You're leaving then?"

"Dude, in a week I'll leaving the plain of existence entirely. I mean, I'm not exactly enthused to be staying in the same house as Katerina," The way she said it said it all, Eileen said the Petrova's name the way Elijah did, not the way Damon and Stefan and Elena did, not _Katherine_ , no it was _Katerina_ with that little drawl and everything. "But I figure I'll get to know my great-great-great and probably a few more greats in between grandmother so what the heck."

"For a New York girl you curse like a southern belle." Nick said, "Well a sober southern belle in front of her parents at least."

"That's the worst heckle I've ever gotten." Eileen looked actually hurt completely ignoring them all and that was when Elena realised that she was never going to be a part of her twin's life, not just because of her impending death but because there was no place for her in it. Eileen had a sister already she had Marlene and Elena wouldn't, _couldn't_ match up to her. That was the stick she was measured by and she would always fall short of it.

"Is there anything I can do? Not for you but for Marlene?"

Eileen blinked furiously before breaking in a sad wistful little smile , "She always wanted a dog but it never seemed like the right time, maybe push her in going to a shelter and adopting one once I'm dead?"

"I'll do my best." And Elena let go, beginning to mourn the sister she never had.

* * *

 **8**


	9. Chapter 9

9

* * *

Katerina was worried. She was afraid of Klaus, anyone sane was afraid of Klaus.

But she could bank on his anger to to make him...well not exactly sloppy, but impulsive. She knew him when he was impulsive, knew him when he was satisfied and happy with how his plans were coming along.

But he was never as sure of himself as he was now.

And that was a problem because it should not be possible for him to be this sure, not when only a few weeks ago he had been on the outs with Elijah, the only one he had ever truly trusted in his own twisted way.

Something had changed. And Katerina had no idea what it was.

Klaus had been away more often than not. There was little she could glean from eavesdropping or anything really when he didn't even spend any time in this ridiculous tiny apartment. He had compelled the hunter and her to coexist and then left, only coming back occasionally to make sure neither of them were dead yet.

It was unnerving. Katerina had 'crossed' him, after all. He had killed her entire family, the same family that had cast her out, in retaliation and now when he should have been plotting, should have been torturing her he didn't.

He must have found another plaything. Perhaps her doppelgänger kept him entertained but Katerina doubted it.

Elena Gilbert was mundane. She wouldn't keep his attention for so long, let alone all the way until now, two days before the full moon.

His witches came to pick her up. A few binding spells and with her daylight amulet taken from her she was limited in what she could do. He wasn't even trying to torture her but this waiting, this state of not knowing anything, it was a torture in itself.

They took her to another house, a larger one, practically a mansion. It wasn't Klaus' own but it did fit in with his style, his pretence of being old money. It was one of the things she had learnt later when the new centuries had given her the right words for it. She had learnt something about his origins, how old he was, how his father was supposedly a wealthy landowner but in an era where that didn't quite mean much. Luxury means different things in the era of Vikings than in the civilised world she was born to.

He was closer to 'white trash' than he realised. Or perhaps that was what she liked to tell herself to make herself feel better. That Katerina Petrova was always going to be better than him in lineage than he liked.

He wouldn't care. Klaus cared about power not lineage.

He was there with Elijah on the upper floor, talking to his brother softly. They both glanced down the stairs at her before looking away just as quickly as if she didn't matter. A shaky breath, one that she didn't need to take as a vampire, left her mouth.

Katerina was going to die. She knew that now.

Another face joined them at the balustrade and Katerina gasped at the sight of it. It looked like her but not like her at the same time. Narrower overall, eyes looking bigger because they were set in a more hollowed out face, eyebrows plucked straighter. But still enough in terms of resemblance for her to recognise her as a doppelgänger. But not Elena.

"I never thought I'd say this," She said, her voice soft and floaty in a way Katerina and Elena's weren't. Katerina heard some vocal training in it, in the precision of it, in her enunciation. "But my great great great something grandmother dresses a bit slutty for my tastes."

"Katerina is more of the if you've got it, then flaunt it types." Klaus said to the doppelgänger with a genuine _smile_. Not a smirk, a smile. Katerina hadn't thought him capable of that.

"That's more clingy and tight than some of my leotards. If I was going to survive past day after tomorrow I would ask her where she got them because that would be useful in rehearsals," She frowned, "No, wait, bit too low cut actually. Would spill out of it in the middle of stretching itself."

They walked down the stairs, the doppelgänger gliding down them as if her feet didn't move. Most definitely not Elena.

"I didn't realise I had more than one human descendant." Katerina said, keeping her eyes on the girl. The other two unnerved her and she needed to keep her wits about, now especially so.

The doppelgänger tilted her head to the side and looked at her. Katerina stifled a shudder at the feeling of being flayed open by a pair of eyes. "Wow, this must be killing you! So many surprises, so many things that you don't know."

Klaus slung his arm around the doppelgänger and led her away from Katerina, "Don't worry, there'll be other things killing her soon enough."

Elijah sighed and pressed a ten dollar note into the doppelgänger's hand and glared at his brother. The rift between the two had clearly been mended. "You could try to be a little bit less predictable."

"Are you two betting on me?" Klaus said with mock outrage. Katerina knew this was mock outrage because no one was dead or tortured or forced to walk into the sun.

"All the time, you should see the ones we have for the actual ritual, if I had a college fund it would be full to the brim by the time of the full moon." The doppelgänger said happily and the three seemed to forget that Katerina was in the room to begin with.

"We're off to see how the setup of the ritual's going, Elijah keep an eye on Katerina would you." With that Klaus was out the door, the doppelgänger with him.

And Katerina turned to the brother she thought she could reason with.

"Who is she?" She asked and Elijah simply raised a brow.

"Isobel didn't tell you she had twins?"

Twins?!

"Her name is Eileen. She's rather lovely. Not quite the innocence you pretended but all the better for it. A real person with ambitions, hopes, emotions and the logic and rationale to back them up." Elijah stepped closer and for a brief moment Katerina remembered that he had once been her friend, her only confidant, the brother of the man courting her. Rather lovely himself. "I do believe she might be the one person Klaus will mourn."

And the world as Katerina knew it lay shattered at her feet.

* * *

It was the night of the full moon and there they were at the Salvatore Boarding house, all of them. Bonnie, Jenna, Jeremy, Alaric, John, Damon and Stefan. All of them, sitting and waiting.

There was nothing for them to do but wait. They couldn't even step out of the house right now, Elena couldn't be there with Eileen for her final moments. With Tyler out there in the woods and possibly the other werewolves who had come to get him, it wasn't safe.

"Bonnie, can I talk to you?" John asked but the tension was too much. Everyone turned to look at him and it was Elena who broke the silence.

"What's going on?"

John twisted his face, "I found a spell in Jonathan's journal. We might be able to resuscitate Eileen after her death. Klaus gets what he wants and Eileen still lives. Win-win."

Bonnie let out a breathless laugh. "There's no such thing as win-win in magic. It's about balance, if one person wins, the other loses." She took the journal held in John's hand and flipped through it, snorting when she read the spell. "There's the balance, the price that has to be paid."

"Bonnie?" Elena asked and her friend turned to her with a tight mouth.

"It binds the life force of the parent to the child. Eileen will live but...John won't."

John didn't even wince at the barrage of noise that came his way when Bonnie said that. He only turned to Elena and sighed.

"You know, I held you when you were born. Your parents were there too but I was the first one of us all to hold you. You were a tiny little thing, I always wondered how such a tiny thing came out of someone who was so giant by then. Miranda said it was rude to say that to a woman so I never mentioned it to Isobel. Now, I know better. I didn't even know Eileen existed until Isobel came back. Years of her life I've missed out on, didn't even look for her."

"John you didn't know-"

"No, I didn't. But I know now. Asked around a bit. She was kicked around a lot of foster homes, you know. Only got adopted when she was eight or so. Kids in the system, they don't have the easiest life. I wasn't there, whatever excuse I have, it doesn't change that fact. She's going to die to save this town that she doesn't know, doesn't even like. And I can do something about it." John turned to Bonnie, "She made her choice, help me make mine."

* * *

It was very scenic, this 'Stephen's Quarry'. Beyond pretty honestly. A good place to die.

Two rings of fire surrounded the other two. Katerina was in one and a werewolf in the other. Klaus had said that when the werewolf found out that this was a ritual to break the Sun and the Moon curse she'd come with them of her own volition. The werewolf was still under the impression that the curse applied to all werewolves everywhere. The ring of fire was to stop her from escaping while undergoing the pain of transformation. The same ring was around Katerina as well. The vampire had protested of course, tried to escape but with the blood loss accompanying the stabbing herself that Klaus had made her do and without the daylight amulet to let her try during the day and with witches to bind her, she was weakened a lot.

Eileen was quite impressed actually. It had taken a lot to subdue this ancestor of hers.

(Despite Greta's insistence, Eileen wasn't in any such ring of fire herself. Klaus' trust in her earned her more than a few dirty looks from the the witch who very clearly had a crush on him. Eileen approved. Not for any other reason only because at least Greta was of age and absolutely willing to be super involved in the supernatural life and shared the lack of morality with Klaus. Those kind of things formed the foundation of healthy relationships and Eileen got the feeling that Klaus was lacking in those.)

Eileen had prepared for the ritual properly. While the rest took care of the lines and candles and altars, Eileen wore a dark shirt that the blood stains wouldn't show up on and most importantly, brought a folding chair. She situated herself a bit away from the others, Klaus made good company to the movies and a great conversational partner but his fondness for gore and blood made her queasy. She looked away as Klaus squeezed the heart and then whistled as he staked Katerina. The squelching sounds made her a bit sick but again, she had prepared for this by eating a very light dinner and taking a pill that she usually took for motion sickness.

"Is it my turn now?" She asked and Klaus held out a hand. Eileen took it but tutted. "Your port de bras is terrible, no grace whatsoever. Sweep your hand up through your centre and present it as if holding your heart out to someone."

"Fussing even as you die, tch tch," Klaus almost sighed, "Well, this is it."

"So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen,adieu!"

"The Sound of Music, really?" Klaus looked her in the eye and compelled her, " _You won't feel any pain as you die._ "

"Aww, my murderer's a sweetheart."

"The pleasure, the privilege is mine."

"No, no, no, there will no quoting The Smiths, especially since you're not actually dying by my side, you're killing me."

Klaus grinned. "Don't be silly, I haven't even started killing you yet."

"You win again," Elijah interjected, rolling his eyes. "Honestly Klaus, so predictable."

Klaus glared at his brother before turning back to her, "It was a pleasure meeting you Ms Henri."

"You too, Niklaus."

And as the fangs pierced her neck the compulsion held true and she didn't feel anything at all, only a growing weakness before her eyes fluttered shut and she felt his arms catch her before she fell.

Then, nothing.

* * *

Eileen was a planner. She prepared for things, thought them out beforehand. Even when things went awry, she still thought them through. Logic was her greatest tool.

But as many others had noted, logic had no place in the world that involved the supernatural.

So she had prepared for death. A final end.

Waking up after was not something she was prepared for. And yet, there she was in the Salvatore Boarding house, shivering and gasping as she came awake.

And she knew even in that frightened state of mind that this shouldn't have happened, this was not logical.

"Wha-"

Her twin, hovering over her had tear tracks running down her cheeks but she answered.

"John tied his life force to yours, you're alive."

And Eileen felt a churning sensation in her stomach as the sheer _wrongness_ of it filled her.

"What have you done?!"

Because Eileen wasn't an idiot. She knew well that when Klaus found out he would go after her. He would consider it a betrayal of the highest order and hunt her down the way he had Katerina and her brethren.

He would come after Marlene.

Eileen rose to fight, to get out of there and find Klaus, tell him what had happened before he found out some other way and took it out on her family but she was stopped by Stefan.

For once, Eileen hadn't prepared for something and Elena had. Stefan looked her in the eye and she felt another compulsion take hold.

" _You will forget everything that happened from the moment you met Elena in New York._ "

* * *

Eileen blinked and clutched her throbbing head. She looked up to find some pale blond boy looking at her in concern and next to him…

Next to him was a girl she had seen in the pictures of the Facebook profile that had messaged her, saying that she was her twin and wanted to meet her. Elena was the name if she remembered correctly and she was staring at her with worry, tear streaks down her face.

"Eileen, you're awake!" She said and pulled her into a hug that had Eileen squirming in uneasiness.

"What are you do-what's going on?"

Elena sobbed, "We were out hiking and this rock fell on you and John-" Elena trailed off in tears again.

"Who are you people?" Eileen asked and the blond boy inhaled sharply.

"The doctors said you might not remember, um, it's the 26th of June 2010, you're in Mystic Falls, Virginia."

"What?!" There was more than a month of her life missing? She was in another state b-but she should never leave while Marlene was…The thought that came to her mind was too horrible to be entertained but Eileen had to ask.

"But Marlene is-"

"Marlene is fine, she woke up around a couple of days after we arrived in New York," Blond boy said but Eileen wasn't listening. Marlene was awake?!

"Where's my phone?" She asked desperately after a search of her pockets turned up nothing and another man, a brunette handed her the device. Eileen ignored them all, pressing speed dial 1, shivering with nerves as the ring went on.

" _Hello my baby sister, what's new in Mysssstic Falls?"_ Came Marlene's excited voice, the one she hadn't heard in months and Eileen burst into tears.

It was okay, everything was okay. Marlene was awake.

Everything was okay.

* * *

9


	10. Chapter 10

10

* * *

Eileen didn't remember anything from the last month. It was more than a bit disconcerting but not nearly as strange as the fact that Marlene was awake but somehow _Eileen was in Mystic Falls Virginia instead of being back home, helping her sister_. That just didn't make any sense.

Yes, Marlene did say that there was something about her biological father and figuring out medical history and that Marlene herself had pushed her to go but it was still _ridiculous_.

Eileen didn't know Elena or any of these others but she knew herself and she knew that her priority was Marlene, nothing else. It just didn't make any sense that she would leave, there had to be something she was missing, something that she was keeping from Marlene which was even worse. She never lied or kept secrets from her, what had happened in the last month that had made it so?

"You ready to head out?" Elena asked from the door and Eileen nodded even as she frowned on the inside.

Elena was a strange person. She was secretive and oddly controlling. It was only a day since Eileen had woken up and she had tried asking around, asking Jeremy and Jenna to see what exactly she was missing in terms of memories. Anytime that happened though, Elena or her boyfriend would appear out of nowhere and steer the conversation to other places. The way they kept things within their strange little circle was already creepy, when Eileen asked where the hospital was to consult the doctor on her head injury they directed her to Stefan's brother instead who was apparently a doctor.

Suffice it to say that Eileen would be getting a second opinion the second she got back home.

The town was creepy, the way everyone kept on trying to keep her hidden, going so far as to steer her away from windows was creepy, and Eileen was too off balance in this place to ask any further questions or really speak her mind. It was better to observe and come back to it later when she had found her footing. And right now all she wanted was to get back home.

"I'm packed and ready." She answered and Elena smiled and drooped and did all sorts of contradictory things. She seemed relieved to see her go and sad at the same time but mostly it was the nervous energy that Elena gave off that gave Eileen pause. She seemed almost jittery but Eileen just didn't understand why.

Elena had gone above and beyond to quicken Eileen's departure. John, the biological father, was supposed to be buried tomorrow but Elena had all but told Eileen to leave. Elena was the one who had found a flight for her to take from Richmond, booked the tickets and everything, and now she and Stefan were driving her to the airport.

Stefan picked up her heavier bag, the one filled with the souvenirs and stuff that Caroline had insisted she take with her while Eileen slung her duffel over her shoulder and followed after them down the stairs.

Jeremy slung an arm around her awkwardly while Jenna gave Eileen a big hug that reminded her of Marlene.

"Don't be a stranger okay?"

"Sure."

Jenna pulled back to look at her sternly albeit with amusement in her eyes. "No, I mean it, this kid is only taking his studies seriously because of all the things you said about your friend Gavin's major." She jabbed a thumb in Jeremy's direction and he gave a half smile.

And Eileen smiled properly at the woman. She seemed pretty cool, she wished she remembered her. The smile slipped off Jenna's face as she saw how Elena seemed almost frantic. She was practically shaking and Eileen could see her holding back but Elena wanted them to leave. She seemed scared, looking over her shoulder far too often and Eileen said a goodbye and left.

Maybe if Eileen remembered she would be that worried and scared too. But she didn't so she let Elena be and just got into the car, ready to leave. Stefan drove while Elena sat in the passenger seat next to him, her eyes glued outside. It wasn't until they came across the board telling them they were now leaving Mystic Falls that they both relaxed but even then they seemed hypervigilant.

Perhaps they were involved in something illegal and were on the lookout from the police? But that didn't make sense, Caroline mentioned her mother, Sheriff Forbes, many times and not once did Elena or Stefan tense when that was brought up.

So Eileen just sat in the backseat and watched the two. Every other second Elena felt the need to turn back and smile reassuringly at her and share a look with Stefan. It was very strange. Eileen was glad the trip wasn't supposed to be that long, she did want out of all this. They reached soon enough and while Stefan went to park the car Elena escorted her to the airport gate. The closer to the gate they got, the more Elena relaxed, until finally she just sighed and her shoulders dropped low.

"I don't know who's more relieved me, or you." Eileen couldn't help but say. She regretted it as Elena's shoulders rose in tension again. Still, she figured the second she was out of sight Elena would be back to being relaxed again.

"I'm sorry." Elena whispered and flung her arms around Eileen, squeezing her uncomfortably tight. It was then that Eileen realised that Elena was trembling terribly. "For all of this. I know it isn't what you wanted."

And that strange feeling Eileen had around Elena, as if something was wrong even though she didn't quite know what came back with a vengeance. She had forgotten something very important but she couldn't quite figure out what. What in Mystic Falls could possibly be so important to her anyway? Everything she could possibly care for was back in New York.

Elena finally pulled away and Stefan had reached them. The two shared a look and Elena undid her necklace and pushed it into Eileen's hand.

"Please, just...wear this." Eileen took it as Elena's hands trembled so much the chain was shaking. "It's very important that you _never_ take this off." Elena said vehemently and Eileen looked to her side to see Stefan looking at her with just as much seriousness.

It was just a necklace, why were they freaking out over it so much? Eileen took it anyway and with one more awkward goodbye she left, off to fly back home.

When the plane took off and she felt a bit more relieved at being farther out of the crosshairs of those stares, she looked at the necklace carefully. There was a hinge on the side so she opened it up, only to find a dried green herb in it.

'Pot?', she wondered. Was this why Elena and Stefan had been so scared, were they running drugs or something? But a sniff of it told her otherwise. It was verbena. Elena had just insisted that she wear a necklace containing dried verbena as if it was some sort of gps tracker that would save her life someday.

Yes, Eileen was very glad to be going back home.

* * *

"Diplomacy." Elijah announced into the room where Klaus, Maddox and Greta were sat, discussing their plans to find the werewolves.

"Homeopathy." Klaus fired back and was amused when Elijah sighed. "I thought we were listing things I don't understand."

Elijah rolled his eyes and sat down across from him. On his left Greta shifted uncomfortably, whether it was because she remembered how her brother and father had aligned with Elijah and were now dead, or because the man who was supposed to be Klaus' confidant for several centuries was back at his side, Klaus didn't quite know. It was probably the latter, Greta held few connections to her family and was slightly obsessed with Klaus.

Eileen had said that was convenient because Klaus was plenty obsessive himself and having someone who connected with him on such a level was good although insane. Of course, she was dead now, by his own hands even, so Klaus ignored the voice in his head that sounded uncannily like her.

"Breaking the curse went smoother than expected because you used diplomacy. I'm not saying we'll find someone suicidal like Eileen again bu-"

"Eileen wasn't suicidal." Klaus defended his doppelganger and the pitying look Elijah shot at him had his fangs itching to rip.

"Klaus, Eileen was depressed. She was good at hiding it but you cannot be unaware of how mentally unhealthy she was."

"She didn't handle her sister's coma very well but-"

"Klaus, she was counting down the days to her death. She measured her life in relation to how it benefited her sister, her self-worth entirely wrapped around it."

"Diplomacy, you said?" Klaus changed the topic. He didn't particularly want to linger on the idea that Eileen had used to him to commit assisted suicide.

Elijah quirked an eyebrow but acquiesced to the change in subject. "Becoming a hybrid means not being controlled by the moon, it is the equivalent of giving a vampire a daylight ring. Use diplomacy to sell the benefits of being a hybrid to them and you will have packs of willing werewolves who will search you out themselves once the word gets around."

"And if it fails?"

"If it fails you have your witches locate them. We know from the Lockwood boys that Florida's where at least a few might be found and there may yet be a few lingering loup garou near New Orleans. If finding werewolves in Mystic Falls has taught us anything it is that the werewolves don't move too far from their territory, they simply go underground. Considering that we know a lot of their hunting grounds..." Elijah opened his arms in a benevolent gesture and Klaus despite being not very fond of the idea still felt the tiniest hint of happiness at having his oldest companion back at his side.

Still... _diplomacy_.

Eurgh.

* * *

10


	11. Chapter 11

_11_

* * *

Luck wasn't something Klaus believed in. If luck was real then the Mikaelsons didn't have much in way of it. They didn't have bad luck either, Klaus looked over their thousand years and found too many things that could have gone terribly wrong for them, so, no, they didn't have bad luck.

But he would have to revise his opinion because the fortunes were smiling down upon them.

A pretty little werewolf had just fallen into their laps, a Miss Hayley in town to avail the hotel, a damned sight better than the one in McKinley where she was visiting the Occult professor.

Luring her away was easy. Turning her into a hybrid, not so much and Klaus was reminded exactly why he didn't believe in luck.

He watched, angry beyond all counts as his first hybrid bled from her eyes and ears, writhing in pain until he reached for the late vestige of mercy left in him and snapped her neck.

He made his way to Greta who was began backing up quickly, sensing his bad mood. His hand fit around her neck perfectly and he lifted her off the ground.

"I thought the curse was broken," He gritted out. Greta sputtered, gasping for breath, her hands wrapped around his one, trying to break his hold. Only once a pallor began setting in did he let her go, he did need her alive to answer him, after all.

"We did everything right, the curse _was_ broken," Greta choked out and Maddox continued her train of thought.

"Unless there's something about the curse you've left out." In the last few months things had changed, Klaus had been finding Greta's simpering annoying while Maddox's bluntness was more on par with what he was used to with his siblings. Klaus hadn't maintained the same associates for long in his life, certainly not human ones. It was an odd thing.

"Mother was creative," Elijah drawled, eyeing the dead failed hybrid dispassionately. "Perhaps the curse was more complicated than we first believed."

"Without knowing what the Original Witch did, we cannot undo it." Greta said, bruises darkening on her neck. "We need to find a way to contact her."

"There is another way," Elijah said as he undid his suit jacket button and bent at the knee, turning the dead girl's head this way and that to see the damage better. He rubbed the blood between his fingers before wiping them off on the girl's jacket and stood up.

"And what might that be?" Klaus asked, impatient but Elijah simply smirked doing up the button once more.

"We talk to the Original Witch's child of course, the one who was taught all about witchcraft from the Witch herself." Softly Klaus swore and Elijah must have heard them because he grinned, his first true grin in ages. "Let's go wake Rebekah, shall we?"

* * *

Eileen dithered in front of the office door. It was perfectly logical to do this, sometimes you just needed help. Eileen _knew_ she needed help, she had for a long time but things hadn't settled down until now. Marlene was fine, Dad was going to be back home in a month, she had got the job as part of the corps de ballet for the American Ballet company like she wanted, everything was perfectly fine.

Except for Eileen herself.

With a sigh she pushed the door open and with an acknowledging nod, she sat down in the seat. The introductions were done, confirming all the things that had been said on the phone when she had made the appointment.

"So, Ms Henri," The man said her name the French way, most people didn't do that unless she had specifically said so. It was interesting and for a moment Eileen let herself be distracted by it. But she was there for a reason and she didn't want to waste her time, she had far too little of it to begin with. He made the small talk before segueing into asking her about her day.

It was all smoothly done. Perhaps others like her needed that prompting, needed to feel more at ease before diving into the thick of it. But Eileen had trained herself to be self-aware and didn't bother much with it.

"I've been a bit depressed in the last few months. It started because my sister was in a coma after a car accident but she's woken up and is fine now and I'm still depressed." Eileen thought over her words and continued, "I should also add that due to a head injury I don't remember the events of the last month or so at all and despite being in a better place now, I have been having a few panic attacks."

"Let's see if we can do something about that," The psychiatrist said and Eileen's eyes drifted behind him to the clock.

Forty minutes left in the session.

* * *

Damon tossed his duffle bag over his shoulder and strode out to his car. He turned one last time to look at it, the boarding house that had once been his home.

Elena hadn't been happy to hear that he was leaving although she also refused to tell him why. Typical though. What was it about the doppelganger that did that, what was it that made him excuse everything they did even when he didn't want to? First Katherine and now Elena.

Katherine…

Katherine was dead. Damon hadn't thought he would care as much as he did. But, Katherine was dead and all the anger, all the hate that he had just barely managed to conjure up for the woman, had died with her. For all that she had betrayed him countless times over, he had loved her far longer than he had hated her. And having to leave her corpse there in the forest in favour of taking Eileen's one back to the Boarding house had killed something in him. In that moment he had understood Katherine better than he ever had.

She had only ever wanted to live, whatever the cost for that life might have been but she had only really managed to survive right up until her final moment.

And he was all alone in mourning her. Elijah of all the people, might have been the only other person who did the same but he was grieving the human version of Katherine, he mourned the innocent human _Katerina._

No one understood, no one bothered to. And this small town with its madness was beginning to wear on Damon.

It was getting awfully boring and it was off to the big cities again.

Maybe he would go to New York. Their little week there hadn't left him enough time to visit his old haunts.

* * *

Klaus flipped through his book as the sound of things clattering and people shouting continued behind him. It was some terrible youth adult vampire romance that had been in the purse of the woman he had drained on the way back from Chicago.

Terribly written with a ton of purple prose dedicated to describing the beauty of the vampire boy, Klaus had no idea why he was reading it. Well, alright, he was reading it in hopes that at some point the vampire would just tear into his mediocre little human pet and drain her dry.

With a sigh he shut it. It was too terrible to be borne.

A glass flew behind his head, parallel to the chaise lounge he was seated on, and shattered as it met the wall. With a few more shrieks it was all done and silence resumed.

Rebekah's temper tantrum was finally done with.

She had thrown a fit directed at him back when he'd woken her up in Chicago. Elijah had declined going with him , saying it was his responsibility since he was the one who had daggered her and so Klaus had been all alone when waking her up.

Which was Elijah's first mistake.

Because This was Rebekah and she could never stay mad at him for too long . Not when he told her about Mikael following them. Not when he told her of Stefan's penchant for Elena, vegetarianism and of course, his previous connection to KAterina. And she definitely couldn't stay mad at him once he told her of how he had been alone for the last few years as Elijah had _believed_ him when he said that the others were dead. Because Rebekah knew that in his own twisted way, Klaus would always live by their vow.

Always and Forever.

Klaus looked up to find Rebekah sobbing in Elijah's arms. He rose to put his own arms around the two feeling content after a very long time.

* * *

New York was a big city. Damon knew this. He had been there before, many times, watched it grow into the metropolis that it was, sprawling up into the air as much as it did on the ground. Running into Eileen was a laughable idea, his usual watering holes no places where she would be.

And yet.

He found himself standing in front of the very same building with the practice rooms within where they had first explained the world of the supernatural to her. When she volunteered to die in Elena's place.

So it shouldn't have surprised him to find himself staring at her, small bag thrown over her shoulder, having broken away from the swarm of others dressed like her. A class must have just ended he realised.

"Elena's doctor friend, right?"

"Damon, Damon Salvatore."

Eileen nodded, silent, clearly waiting for him to say something more. It was just the kind of thing she would do, she wouldn't ask 'What are you doing here?' or 'Are you stalking me?', no she would just wait until the awkwardness came over him, wait for him to break.

Which he did, "I haven't been in the city since when we all came to stay with you. Habit, I guess."

Eileen's eyebrow rose. Damon could almost hear what she was thinking, 'One week of staying with me and already developing habits of hanging around my dance classes? Bit strange of you.'

The thing is, back when she still remembered knowing him, she would have just _said_ it, not just thought it. She knew him, she was comfortable saying things like that to his face. This qualm wasn't the norm for them. She didn't remember him, but he remembered her.

"You're making this weirder than it is."

The other eyebrow flew up, joining its twin.

Damon sighed heavily, rolling his eyes which was when she reacted.

"Huh, I actually knew you. As an individual." He supposed something in the familiarity of his actions had convinced her that they were on close terms once. The utter disbelief in her voice though, it was more than a little bit insulting.

"Why is that so strange to you?"

"Because most of my phone messages and calls from the month in Mystic Falls are from someone saved as Klaus. Only a couple of outgoing calls to Damon and those weren't more than a few minutes."

A chill went down Damon's spine at that name and the fact that it was coming form Eileen. She shouldn't know anything about the hybrid and if she had tried to call back on the number and spoken to Klaus, Elena and everyone were in some serious danger.

"You didn't try to contact him did you?" He asked, wishing that she didn't have vervain around her neck so that he could compel her to tell the truth.

Eileen went blank and took a subtle step back. Some of his panic must have leaked into his voice. Damon was losing it, slowly but steadily.

"I haven't exactly eager to remember my Mystic Falls days. It hinders any plausible deniability I might have."

"Plausible deniability?" Damon asked, thoroughly confused.

"Oh, come on, are you really going to pretend like there isn't something shady going on in that town? I did a bit of research, the number of dead people alone is weird and I might have ended up being one of them!"

Ending up as one of the dead people was exactly what Eileen had wanted though. Damon was curious to know what she thought was going on in Mystic Falls, what picture she had drawn in her mind with the few pieces she had. Had she guessed upon the supernatural nature of the town? Had any of the texts from Klaus given anything away?

"What do you think is happening in Mystic Falls."

Eileen opened her mouth to answer, as if eager to share her theories but shut her mouth before a sound could make its way out, eyeing him carefully. With one eye on him, she shot out a text and Damon's better than human sight let him see what she was writing.

'Met elena's frnd, talking shady biz, if i go missing tell the cops to look for damon salvatore'

And Damon felt laughter bubbling up for the first time in months.

"Drug trafficking." She finally answered, succinct and utterly serious. "Don't know why verbena counts as a drug in Mystic Falls but I'm putting it down to small town weirdness. Maybe you don't get the good stuff there."

And Damon nearly fell over laughing.

* * *

 _11_


End file.
